“My family is in the lower Tram depot,” Captain Vane said.
His voice was very quiet. But it had the hollow, shaking thickness of a bronze bell struck with a wooden mallet. It carried across the instrument gallery, cutting through the low thrum of the cooling chimney pipes.
The captain didn’t look at Ivara, and he didn’t look at his guards. He kept his eyes fixed on Chancellor Ves Morn’s face.
“My wife, Marta,” Vane said, his fingers resting motionless beside his unbuckled sword belt. “My two girls, Elena and Sela. Sela is nine years old. She has a bitter salt cough that makes her spit blood when the kiln smoke settles in the valley. You told me three days ago that the Salt Ward was hoarding the sulfur medicines. You told me the underground had raided the state apothecary to sell the vials on the black market in the Quarry.”
Morn took half a step backward, his shoulder blades coming up against the cold iron casing of the main pressure gauge. “Captain, this is insubordination during an active emergency—”
“Be quiet,” Vane said. The command was delivered without heat, but it carried the total, unbending power of a veteran soldier who had spent twenty winters obeying orders in the dark.
